NASA’s Psyche mission recently launched a spacecraft on a 2.2 billion-mile journey to study a giant metal-rich asteroid located at the far edge of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The asteroid, named 16 Psyche, could aid researchers to better understand unexplored building blocks of planetary formation. 

The Aerospace Corporation provided support across a breadth of technical activities for the mission, which is led by Arizona State University and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 

“What makes 16 Psyche unique is that it’s an all-metal body. Most things in the asteroid belt are either rock or ice, but 16 Psyche is a nickel/iron composition and we think it’s that way because it’s the core of what was an early planet that never formed,” said Kimberly Sover, Senior Member of Technical Staff at Aerospace. “So, while we can’t directly observe Earth’s core, we can take direct observations of this Psyche asteroid.”